I recovered the holy relic!!

Ok, enough bizzare game references. My edit is currently being burnt onto a dvd. I sneakily tweaked it a little and did the things I ran out of time to do last week. I may not get graded for it but it'll be great showing it to my family and friends (the documentary I made last year put them all to sleep). I feel so acomplished! I don't even care anymore that Khyan's edit got picked cos I am still awesome!
So final thought time: All things considered, I loved making this film. There was stress, disagreements and dissapointments but we pulled through. I learnt a lot and acomplished a lot and had a good time with everyone. I know this all sounds cheesy but it's true. This is a great first step for my future and I think it'll lead me to great things.
And now the dvd is done and it's so shiny!! It feels like the end of a long hard quest...

And now we all get ice cream

The day has finally come- We finished post production!!
But it's not all good news. I ran out of time to do everything I wanted and am worried that it might be terrible. But that editing book said that you never really finish an edit, there will always be things you want to change. That's the same as writing a novel or doing coursework. You just have to do the best you can in the time you're given.
In the end we picked Khyan's edit for public viewing. I liked his edit a lot but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't dissapointed. It feels as if all my hard work counted for nothing.
But at least I worked hard on something I can still be proud of. And I learnt a lot about film editing and learning is why I came to university. I've been considering becoming an editor so maybe that's why I feel so peeved that my edit wasn't chosen. It wasn't really the edit anyway, it was the music. Khyan has better taste in music than I do.
So apart from the evaluation, nothing left to do but sit back and wait for the grades.

It's all coming together

Being a swot has paid off, the film is looking great! All the problems I've been having are being sorted out one by one. In most cases it's just a simple case of knowing how the final cut tools work. Maybe I should've read a little more about that...
Of course it'll be much more effective with the music, which we should have soon enough. Other than that, I just have to lighten up the shots that are too dark, add a few sound effects and put in an annoying phone voice. Oh and the titles. And I think the final scene rushes past too fast.
Even so, I might just be able to finish this without having a total freak out.

I'm in the publishing lab again, taking a break so my brain doesn't overheat. I've got something that could be called a rough cut done. Right now I'm just watching it over and over again and making adjustments.
There are still a few problems I need help with. Well actually 'a few' is an understatement! I can't get the titles, cropping or swap tool to work and I still need to figure out how to insert just audio over a shot.
Everyone else seems to be having just as many problems as I am. I feel better that it's not just me. Yeah I know that's sadistic...
Edit: Something that occured to me just now- I think what sets this film apart from other student films is thanks to the writer and the actors, the characters are very real and believable and the performances are excellent. I didn't notice until I started editing that Rich does the best facial expressions ever!! This type of thing makes editing so much easier too.

I'm back!

Over Easter I managed to tell all of my relatives about the film and convinced them all to watch it when it's done. I'm very good at blatant advertising.
I also spent my time away reading a book called 'Editing techniques with Final Cut Pro' which has actually caused more problems than it's solved. Now I'm so pressured to edit like a professional that I'm panicking about the film not looking good or that all my edits are wrong.
This is a common problem for me. I need to step back and remember 1. I'm not a professional editor, 2. No one expects a student film to look like a hollywood blockbuster and 3. This is just a rough edit and after Easter I'll have Richard giving me advice.

You know you're in trouble when 10am feels like 5am

Came in to do some more editing. I'm still getting my head around Final cut again but I think I'm doing ok. I even put in a cross dissolve. Go me! (It's not that impressive really). I found that the dialogue scenes seem harder to edit.
I came up with a good idea but then forgot it and by the time I remembered I'd already put the sequence together quite well. So it took me a while to figure out what I should do. In the end I decided 'it looks good, why change it?' I supposed if I'd gone with my apparently brilliant idea the edit might not look as good.
So now I'm going back to my family, who are totally ignorant to what editing is, and will most likely forget how to use final cut once again. That's why I'm going to book plenty of time for the week and a half over Easter when I'll be back here. When that happens, I'll have to bring a script with me because....I sort of forgot how it went...he he...
I'll be back!!

The film is now 100% digitised. Horray! I think either technology doesn't like me or tape decks are just awkward. As soon as they reach the end of the tape and lose the timecode they don't know what to do.
So I started editing and considering it's been almost a year since I edited something using Final cut, it went quite well. I got a whole 40 seconds done!! Woo!!
I've booked some time for friday and I'll soon book some more time over Easter.